Gina Raimondo on How European Industry Is Getting Crushed

What It Covers

Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, speaking at CFR on April 1, 2026, examines how Chinese industrial dumping is devastating European manufacturing, why alienating US allies undermines the China competition strategy, and how America must manage the AI economic transition to avoid domestic destabilization.

Key Questions Answered

• •China's Europe Strategy: Chinese imports into Europe surged approximately 30% year-over-year, with Beijing deliberately subsidizing and dumping cheap goods to destroy German automotive and chemical industries. Policymakers should treat this as a direct threat to Western alliance strength, not merely a bilateral EU-China trade issue, since a weakened European industrial base directly reduces US strategic leverage against China.
• •CHIPS Act Bipartisanship Requirement: The CHIPS Act survived the Biden-to-Trump transition specifically because Raimondo's team continuously briefed Republican congressional members throughout implementation, not just during passage. Industrial policy designers should build cross-party stakeholder relationships from day one, contrasting with the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed on partisan lines and was immediately dismantled after the election.
• •Semiconductor Supply Chain Gaps: Despite CHIPS Act progress toward 20% of global leading-edge chip capacity in the US by 2030, critical vulnerabilities remain: chips manufactured in Arizona still return to Taiwan for advanced packaging, approximately 30% of printed circuit boards are imported from China, and nearly all chemical substrates used in chip fabrication originate from China or broader Asia.
• •AI Transition Risk Framework: Winning the AI race requires more than superior models and chips. Raimondo argues that 15% unemployment and civil unrest would constitute losing, not winning. Policymakers should simultaneously build transition infrastructure: allowing workers to collect unemployment insurance while starting businesses, employer-funded severance supplements, and state-level wage subsidy experiments targeting displaced white-collar workers.
• •Allied Diversification Over Self-Sufficiency: The US cannot manufacture everything domestically due to insufficient labor, land, and energy capacity. The actionable alternative is diversifying critical mineral supply chains toward Indonesia for nickel and Philippines-based resources, accepting imperfect labor and environmental standards from partner nations rather than defaulting to near-total Chinese dependency on cobalt, nickel, and rare inputs.